How cam'st thou in this pickle? - SHakespeare, The Tempest
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Pirate politicians disappoint in general election
THE PIRATE PARTY did not do particularly well in yesterday's general election, but according to its senior members, the gains it made were significant.
Although its representatives were able to pull together just a 0.6 percent share of the vote in their respective constituencies, it only stood in nine, and the Party estimated that if it stood in every consituency this would scale up to 100,000 votes. An impressive number for a young political group with a confusing name. Tim Dobson, who stood in Manchester Gorton, had the best result, receiving 236 of the public votes.
The party leader, Andrew Robison bragged on his Twitter feed that under a different voting system, proportional representation, this would have been enough to earn it a brace of Commons bound ministers. "0.3% swing to Pirates - pretty amazing for a party less than a year old, well done all!," he tweeted, "Under PR that would be 2 MPs!"
Many of the minority parties would do well under PR, the Greens for example, who won one seat in Brighton, would have been awarded between six and nine, the UK independence party would have about eighteen, and the BNP about twelve - but taking their IQs into account, we'll round this down to half a toad.
The Pirate Party, like the three main parties, is not adverse to the idea of colluding with others either. In a statement it said, "Today was always going to be the start - rather than the end - of the battle, and we now must retire, re-group and revise our campaigns, forge alliances, and act on lessons learned if we wish to accomplish even a tenth of what we are capable of."
A word of advice people, stay away from the technologically clueless Labour MP Stephen Timms. µ
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I really hope you folks in the UK at least get the chance to test out PR. Speaking as a New Zealander, it has made for a much more varied and representative political scene since we adopted it in 1996. More attention paid to minority viewpoints, up to a point—have, say, a 4-5% cutoff to keep the loonies and extremists out.
May mean some folks from the BNP also get in. But I say, why not confront them and show the bankruptcy of their ideas within the official, legitimate political framework, rather than try to suppress them and let them fester in the underground?
Time to pirate some votes, me hearties!
Anyone with half a brain knows to look at a groups policy not the name. The name is really irrelevent, and if you read their manifesto, which was posted on the INQ, then you maybe have the right to comment about such things.
I myself thought they brought up some great points. Of course I don't think their main campaign is quite universal enough yet, it was a little too specific.
I would like to say I was one of 173 voters in the Worcestershire area.
A wasted vote, perhaps, but if we'd all voted Labour or such Conservatives would still have won this region.
People don't understand yet how relevant this party is right now. Anybody with half a brain would support them.
I guess they are too young to pierce through, but their time will come I am sure.
Why would I vote for someone simply for their stand on software piracy?
@Matt: If the Pirat's Party name is misleading, that's the fault of the Pirate Party. Why not make that comment to the party instead of Paul?
Ever heard the phrase, don't judge a book by it's cover? The Pirate Party is against piracy. They're for giving money to people who make the media and against letting record labels and publishers take the largest percentage of it.
They don't seem serious parties and don't really seem to take themselves seriously, and rightly so, the fight for fairness and reasonable laws, and against corruption, should be done by (all) normal parties as part of a package not as some fun gimmick, and although all the parties (worldwide) are doing the opposite currently that doesn't mean making a joke of things is the best answer.
It's all too serious how the entire world is losing its freedom under corporate fascism to make joke parties as an answer.
Most of society does not condone piracy so no matter what the bogus platform these fools will never get elected.